Cut and Paste
by holidaysfromreality
Summary: Sometimes you have to make the best of a less-than-desirable situation.  Disclaimer: I dont own Glee.


"Nice job today, everyone," Mr. Schuester told his glee club as they caught their breath on stage after performing _Don't Stop Believing _for maybe the hundredth time over the last few weeks. It was getting there, but it wasn't perfect yet. And so they kept at it, improving each time in his eyes. He stood from the risen desk in the center of the auditorium, "If you could all sit down for a minute, we need to go through the line-up for the invitational next Friday."

Artie Abrams held his breath. He had been waiting for this day for weeks now. He knew that, without a doubt, they would be singing Queen's "Somebody to Love," but his solo had hung in the balance since the day they had gotten the sheet music for the song.

Mr. Schue had told him from the get-go that there was a possibility that his solo would be cut because of time constraints that were out of his control. But he had also told him not worry about it, so he brushed it off at the time. Artie tried to be accepting about it as it got closer to this day. Because the more they practiced it, complete with both his and Finn's solos, the more he doubted that his part would be kept. The song was just barely shy of five minutes, longer than anything they had performed in glee club thus far.

He knew that the "but I've worked so hard" line was a typical thing to say, but that didn't make it any less true. He sang his parts in the shower, in the car, while doing his homework. Any free moment he had was dedicated to making his voice sound just right. He wanted to put the right amount of feeling into it. All in all, Artie wanted it to be_ perfect_.

Mr. Schue had come up to the stage and handed out a new set of sheet music. Of course, it was "Somebody to Love." Artie knew that the whole song wouldn't be cut. He scanned the pages for the _I try and I try and I try _bit, his absolute favorite part. He didn't see it. He looked to see if any of his solo had been saved and was more than a little disappointed to find nothing.

He frowned, then pursed his lips to keep himself from crying. He knew it was stupid to be getting all emotional about this, but he truly been looking forward to having his moment. His parents were proud of him and his sister had expressed her insane excitement to see him sing outside of the car. He wanted to show a crowd of people that he was more than he appeared to be.

With that, the club was released to go home. Puck and Matt carried Artie's wheelchair out, offering their condolences on his lost solo, which was really just two consecutive slugs to the arm, but he couldn't expect much more from either of them. Finn gave him an almost embarrassed smile as he walked past him.

Tina took the handles of his wheelchair and began to push him toward the back entrance, where his mother always picked him up. "I'm s-s-sorry about your s-s-solo," she told him, "You w-w-were g-g-getting p-p-pretty good."

"Thanks," he said, holding his hands in his lap. They were now making their way down the ramp and to the curb. Once there, Artie put his brakes on as Tina plopped herself down on the pavement beside his chair. He sighed and finally confided in her, "It's not that I don't like Finn, but it seems like he gets all the solos."

She nodded in understanding and patted his leg, even though she knew he couldn't feel it, "He's l-l-like a Rachel for the g-g-guys."

"Yeah, exactly," he replied, "I don't know. I was just excited for it, you know? I got my hopes up too soon. Mr. Schue said it would probably get cut."

"D-D-Don't t-t-talk like th-th-that, Artie. B-B-Between you and me, I think y-y-you're a b-b-better singer."

"Thanks, Tina," he said quietly, giving her a small smile, as his mother pulled up. He unlocked his brakes and began to wheel toward the van. He turned his head and called behind him, "I'll see you tomorrow."

His mother didn't question him about why he looked so upset and for that, he was thankful. He could see the concern in her eyes and the way the her mouth would purse like she wanted to say something, but knew that it was best that she didn't. She just asked him about dinner and he gave the appropriate responses.

Artie spent a good portion of the early evening sulking about the solo. He had never been one to understand why people like Rachel Berry got so upset when they didn't get the solo they wanted, because it hadn't happened to him yet. It was like a sharp punch to the gut or a slushie facial that says: _you're not good enough. _

And he knew that wasn't the case. Mr. Schue had commended him on his singing voice, on both this song and many others. He knew that he was good enough to sing the part, but it was just a million other factors, all working against him.

He wouldn't lie and say that he wasn't disappointed…angry…and a slew of other emotions that were the opposite of happy. He was sure that Mr. Schue wasn't going to cut his part and when it was just…a shock. A punch to the gut. A slushie facial.

He sighed to himself, looking around his inexplicably tidy room. _What do I do now? _he thought. He couldn't bring himself to sing the words. That would be opening himself up to, basically, ruining the song for him. Whenever something bad happened, he knew it wasn't a good thing to listen to music when he was still going over what had happened in his head. Because then he would always associate that song with a bad memory and that's just…horrible. He'd have to delete from his iPod, delete it from his memory, like it didn't even exist. Music had always been a huge part of his life and he always remembered events with songs.

In any case, Artie had been sure his solo wouldn't be cut. And now it was.

_So, _he thought to himself, _what am I going to do now? _

He picked up his guitar and wheeled over to his desk, opening up the internet browser. He went to his favorite search engine and typed in: _Queen, Somebody to Love, chords. _He pressed enter and watched thousands of hits pop up. He chose the first website, already knowing it was a reliable source, and studied it for a few minutes before putting his fingers to the frets of his guitar.

Learning the lead guitar part wasn't as hard as he thought it was going to be. He had learned other Queen songs in the past that had taken him weeks to just get a basic feel for, but this one came naturally to him. He had spent so much time focusing on it that he was able to play mostly by ear once he was in the right basic range.

He spent most of the night working on mastering it, completely forgetting about all his other homework, until his mother came into his room and told him to go to bed.

"You s-s-seem t-t-to be in a b-b-better m-m-mood," Tina observed the next day as Artie put his books in backpack.

He zipped up his bag and they started toward the choir room, "I am. I thought a lot about it last night and I've decided to be positive about it. They'll be other solos. It's not like I'm quitting anytime soon."

"I'm g-g-glad y-y-you're f-f-feeling better. S-S-Sadness d-d-doesn't suit you."

They entered the choir room and took their usual seats beside Kurt and Mercedes. They both offered some soothing words to Artie and Kurt even made an attempt to be sympathetic by saying, "You could massacre Finn in a diva-off, Artie. Your sense of style says nothing about your singing voice." Artie was unsure whether to be touched, offended, or very, very creeped out.

Before he could question it, however, Mr. Schue arrived, immediately launching into, "Okay, guys. We've got to get right to work if we're going to be ready for the invitational next week."

Artie raised his hand slightly, "Mr. Schue? I was wondering if I could play the guitar part for _Somebody to Love_?" He almost added something about not wanting to mess up the composition of the dance number just so he could do it, but Artie honestly liked dancing. He had enjoyed learning to dance in his wheelchair over the last few weeks.

His teacher seemed to ponder the idea for a moment before asking, "Do you know it?"

Artie nodded. Mr. Schue looked to the rest of the club for a minute and said, "Okay, let's try it." He retrieved Artie's electric guitar from one of the cubbies lining the wall and handed it to him. "Finn, Rachel, come here." The teacher pushed Artie to the center of the room and asked, "Can you follow along?"

"Yeah, definitely."

Mr. Schue smiled, "All right, from the top."

So, Artie didn't get the solo. There would be other solos. Many other chances to shine in the way Finn got to this time around. But he was able to reimmerse himself in something that he loved in an entirely new way and made him equally as happy. He could do something that no one else in the glee club could. In this moment, he was the leader. The melody. Without him, there was nothing.


End file.
